Earth's Surface
Earth's Surface
Earth's History
Minerals and Rocks
The Restless Earth
100
This sphere is the mostly solid, rocky part of Earth
What is the geosphere?
100
Acid precipitation is an agent of this type of weathering.
What is chemical weathering?
100
The approximate age of Earth.
What is 4.6 billion years old?
100
A naturally occurring, usually inorganic solid that has a definite crystalline structure and chemical composition.
What is a mineral?
100
The hot, convecting, compositional layer of rock between the Earth's crust and core.
What is the mantle?
200
The sphere made up mostly of invisible gases that surround the Earth.
What is the atmosphere?
200
The mechanical breakdown of rocks by the action of other rocks and sand particles is known as this.
What is abrasion?
200
The remains of a once-living organism found in layers of rock, ice, or amber.
What is a fossil?
200
The three major classes of rocks.
What are igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic?
200
The theory that explains how large pieces of Earth's outermost layer move and change shape.
What is plate tectonics?
300
Ice, sea ice, and glaciers are all part of this sphere.
What is the cryosphere?
300
The process by which rock is broken down into smaller pieces by physical changes.
What is physical weathering?
300
The principle that states that younger rocks lie above older rocks if the layers have not been disturbed.
What is the law of superposition?
300
The series of processes in which rock changes from one type to another.
What is the rock cycle?
300
The stress that stretches or pulls rock apart.
What is tension?
400
A way to keep track of energy transfers into and out of the Earth system.
What is Earth's energy budget?
400
The process by which other chemicals combine with oxygen.
What is oxidation?
400
The FOUR major divisions of Earth's history.
What are the Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic?
400
The scale scientists use to determine the hardness of minerals.
What is the Mohs hardness scale?
400
The three different types of volcanic mountains.
What are cinder cone volcanoes, shield volcanoes, and composite volcanoes?
500

The term that describes the ability a soil has to support plant growth.

What is fertility?
500
The SIX agents of physical weathering.
What are temperature changes, pressure changes, plant and animal actions, water, wind, and gravity?
500
The FIVE ways organisms can become preserved as fossils.
What is trapped in amber, trapped in asphalt, buried in rock, become frozen, and become petrified?
500
The SEVEN properties that can be used to identify minerals?
What are COLOR, STREAK, LUSTER, CLEAVAGE and FRACTURE, DENSITY, HARDNESS, and SPECIAL PROPERTIES.
500
Earth's three main kinds of faults.
What are strike-slip faults, normal faults, and reverse faults?
M
e
n
u